Thursday, April 12, 2007

The "See-food" Diet

I saw this on PBS the other night and nearly tossed my cookies. I'm not easily sickened but this has haunted me ever since I saw it. I told my husband, who also saw it, that I would give just about anything to have those last few minutes back. I will carry this bit of video with me for the rest of my life. I found the website of the man who shot the video (link to the YouTube video is on the right).

Visit the site if you're interested but DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEO UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE CHANGED FOREVER!

If you don't want to watch the video here is the narrative. It's easier to read about it than watch it, believe me!

POINT OF VIEW:

Hardy Jones, BlueVoice.org

"I’ve been going to Japan for over 25 years. They have a great cultural historical tie to hunting whales and dolphins and they make no bones about the fact that they’re doing it.

Imagine a school of dolphins frolicking off the coast. Suddenly they hear the sound of engines and then the overwhelming painful sounds of the banging of metal bars. The dolphins flee before the terrifying sounds. But their flight takes them in to a confined and unfamiliar space. They extract the young and the pretty and they put them in slings and they send them off to aquariums where they’re going to pay anywhere from $4000 to up to $50,000 a head.

Then they kill the rest for the dolphin meat. The horror of lying on your side out of the water, having trouble breathing, hearing the sounds of your pod mates as they’re slaughtered. I just said to myself, just keep filming. Just keep filming, and then get this film out of here.

They always want the video. They always want the video from you. Then I just ran away from them. I knew what those dolphins were experiencing.The only thing I can do is take pictures and show the world what they are doing."

I've seen a lot of documentaries about dolphins and I'm not one of these bleeding hearts who think they're just like you and me. Or maybe I should refrase that and say that maybe they're too much like you and me. They have their vices just like us. But they are intelligent creatures who don't deserve to die like this.

Here are a couple other links. The first one is another, equally disturbing video so be warned!

When I went to read "Sherman's Lagoon" this morning I noticed a link on the home page to this - Seafood Watch. If you love seafood AND care about the environment (and I know you do) you should check this out.

The only thing I can't figure out is how you know where the seafood you eat in a restaurant comes from? I have a feeling that if I sit down in Red Lobster and ask them whether the shrimp in the scampi are from the US or Mexico, farm-raised or wild-caught, I'm just going to get a blank look. Even the management probably has no clue where or how the seafood they serve was caught. Sure, in some fancy restaurant on the shore they probably know exactly where the fish came from but what about all the chains? In some parts of the country that's your only alternative for a seafood dinner.